In the following video from Google's small business site, they reveal how easy the surveys can be to design and how affordable they are to purchase:

Listen to what Google has to say about how their surveys work:

"Here’s how it works: people browsing the web come across your questions when they try to access high quality content like news articles or videos. Answering the question gives them near instant access to the page they want. All responses are anonymous; they aren’t tied to users’ identity or later used to target ads. This provides an alternative to the traditional paywall model: site visitors don’t have to pull out a wallet or sign in, publishers get paid as their site visitors respond, and you gain insight into what people think -- for just $0.10 per response for the general US population or $0.50 per response for custom audiences."

It sounds fairly painless to me. If you're looking to get started in consumer research, or you just need a better idea of who your market is, this might be the best place to go. It's worth a shot, after all, this doesn't really sound like a large investment.